How COVID-19 Has Affected Frontline Workers in Brazil: A Comparative Analysis of Nurses and Community Health Workers

Abstract

The need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges for services delivered by frontline workers (FLW). This paper analyzes how the Brazilian government regulated the reorganization of Primary Health Care (PHC) and how FLW responded to these initiatives, comparing the roles played by nurses and community health workers. Given the multilevel health system, it was expected that the high level of ambiguity would stimulate innovations. However, data show that the ambiguity created different situations for each profession. While nurses were able to adapt their work and act with more autonomy, CHW lost their role in the policy.

Note: In the interests of space, street-level theory and the pandemic context underpinning the articles for this special issue are discussed in detail in the Introduction to the issue.

Keywords:

• frontline workers
• health
• multilevel governance
• COVID-19
• community health workers

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [2019/13439-7,CEPID CEM].

Notes on contributors

Gabriela Lotta

Gabriela Lotta is Professor of Public Administration at Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil) and Researcher at the Center of Metropolitan Studies (CEM).

Vera S. P. Coelho

Vera S. P. Coelho is professor at Federal University of ABC (Brazil) and Senior Researcher at the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM).

Eugenia Brage

Eugenia Brage is Posdoctoral fellow, at the Center for Metropolitan Studies (CEM)